


Jabberwocky

by TechnicolorVocab01



Category: Dororo (Anime 2019)
Genre: And I just think it's neat, And he's learning the nuances of language, Basically I'm trying to recover from episode 22 with some wholesome interactions, Brotherly Bonding, Fluff, Gen, Hyakkimaru is learning all the time, Light Angst, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Sibling Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2020-05-13 03:19:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19242760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TechnicolorVocab01/pseuds/TechnicolorVocab01
Summary: When Hyakkimaru gets his ears back, the world is suddenly much larger, and much more confusing. Just like slaying demons, learning to listen is a beast he must overcome to be whole.Luckily for him, he isn't alone.





	Jabberwocky

**Author's Note:**

> I'm trying not to think about how badly things are going in canon right now. In the spirit of episode 22 denial, enjoy this light hearted one-shot!
> 
> (Please MAPPA let the end of the show be kind to them I'm begging you)

The world explodes.

He’s surrounded, assaulted on all sides by… something. Everything. Taking a deep breath, air whistles through his head with the force of a maelstrom. He takes a mindless step forward, wooden foot connecting with gravel that crackles and crunches, piercing his brain with a sparking sensation so overwhelming his hands clamp down around his head. Even that sends thunder rattling through his skull, and he resigns to crouching where he is, willing the world to fall away and leave him in peace.

The world moves around him anyway, _crunching_ and _rustling_ and _whooshing_ filtering through his fingers. Beneath his hands, his heartbeat pounds and echoes, and the rush of blood through his veins builds and circulates through his new body parts so intensely his head begins to feel light and his leg begins to shake.

From behind him, there is a _shriek_ so shrill it sends a jolt down his spine. It warbles and clips, stopping and starting so fast he can’t keep up. As the source draws closer, the cacophonic cadence grows more unbearable, and his teeth grind together with an echoing _creak._

The black world around him is painted white, and the source of the shrieking is revealed. The Little Flame, once an endearing novelty in a world that tended to pass him by, was now the source of the most painful assault on his new body parts he had yet to experience. With an air of desperation, he reaches out blindly with his left prosthetic. His new sense pours in the side of his head like a waterfall, and his limb misses its mark before smacking to a stop at the Little Flame’s mouth.

As the world grew measurably quieter, he felt his shoulders relax, his shaking frame rattling the metal in his prosthetics. The Little Flame lost tension as well, bright white calming to a duller shade. When he was sure the Little Flame wouldn’t continue its shrieking, he brought his left arm back to his head, slowly as not to create a _thunk_. Instead, his hand brushes over his hair, which buzzes and fizzles enough that he curls in on himself more, overwhelmed with the paralyzing thought that everything, _everything,_ involves his new sense. As the Little Flame moves to sit down in front of him, crunching gravel along the way, he thinks that killing that red-flamed sword was a mistake.

The Little Flame reaches out, clothes rustling with the movement, gravel crackling as it shifts.

He doesn’t want these body parts anymore. He wants to get rid of them, cut and hack at them until there is nothing left.

A hand closes around his wrist, tugging gently to move the limb from his face. The dry scraping of wood on flesh sets his teeth on edge.

What else was he missing? Each new sense is more shocking than the last, and he isn’t sure how much more he could take. He doesn’t want these body parts anymore. He isn’t sure if he wants anything else at all. Why would he need this? Why would he _want_ this?

His hand is pulled up to the Little Flame’s cheek, where it stays curled and limp. If he moved his joints, they would creak.

He doesn’t want to be whole, if this is what it is like.

He jolts when the Little Flame’s mouth starts once more. Lower pitched and not quite as booming as before, the string of chatter is not as piercing. It’s still unpleasant, however, still makes his teeth ache, and he is about to move to clamp his hand over its mouth once more.

Before he can, the white flame moves his hand to his own cheek and lets out another low pitched sound. Its color is a bit brighter, and wavers slowly enough that it captured his attention, and so he lets it move his limb to its cheek once more.

Another sound.

His hand is moved back to his cheek. Yet another sound, cadence familiar.

The hand is moved back to the Little Flame. He listens to the way the sound trills and stops.

Back to his cheek. He follows the sound this time, how it starts, how it ends.

After one last round, Hyakkimaru snatches his hand away. He can’t take any more of the new sense, and curls his hand over the side of his head and lays down where he is. Thankfully, his companion understands and ends its sound-making, bright color making it seem satisfied.

Hyakkimaru understood now. Dororo didn’t have to keep explaining.

* * *

 

Hyakkimaru keeps one hand on the golden pouch at his chest. Dororo called it, “seed rice,” and Hyakkimaru committed the sound to memory. His companion was still going on, weaving words and phrases too intricate for Hyakkimaru to hope to keep up with, but he lets the jabber wash over his ears and dull the pounding in his chest.

He wonders to himself what word Dororo would use to talk of the seed rice's future. Hyakkimaru had seen things like it before; the sorts of things that, when left alone for a long stretch of time, would become taller and taller until it filled his vision with gold.

Hyakkimaru wants to know the name of the action, how things change and get larger. Holding out the seed pouch, he expects Dororo to explain what he wants to hear. After all, Dororo seems to understand him more often than not, even without the sounds others use so excessively.

Dororo’s flame dims as the chatter grows quiet. The two stop for a moment, and Dororo’s hand reaches out to rest heavily on the pouch of seed rice.

When Dororo starts talking, it’s soft and slow in Hyakkimaru’s ears. That first night he had with his hearing, overwhelmed and questioning the use of such an awful sense, Dororo had taught him that sound held meaning. Now, Hyakkimaru desperately tries to parse meaning from the string of soft gibberish. He hears _Mio_ , and his chest grows tight. He hears _seeds,_ and listens closer for his answer, tries to memorize each rise and fall of Dororo’s voice in search of the word he’s after.

It’s all jumbled in his head. Hyakkimaru can’t find where each word starts and stops, can’t hope to single out meaning in any syllable. Without an answer, his hand falls limply to his side.

Dororo ends the chain of nonsense, and the world grows quieter. Hyakkimaru still wants to know the sound for seed rice becoming large. Large enough to get lost in, to brush at his face, to cover his dark vision with wisps of yellow.

He would have to open his mouth, listen to his own horrible, booming voice drum behind his eyes, go up and out his ears instead of in. Even if he were brave enough to do so, he wouldn't know where to start, with as few words as he has compiled away for that potential someday when he would be.

But Hyakkimaru does know one sound. After a long moment of going over it, making sure it was right, going over the movement with his mouth, he built the word in his throat.

“Seed rice.”

The sensation of air whistling past his teeth makes his still-new, vulnerable skin crawl, and even with his efforts to make the sound as small as possible, it still pounds at his ears, still scratches at his throat.

Dororo tilts one ear upwards, light glowing brighter. “Yeah. Seed rice.”

The little flame says something else, but Hyakkimaru doesn’t understand. Instead, he focuses on the next step. The seed rice would fill his vision if he left it alone. He doesn’t know what that is called, either.

Hyakkimaru takes another moment to go through the ever growing list of words he does know. He knows the green limbs at his side are _arms_ , and the weapons hidden within were _swords._ He uses them to get his _body_ back from _demons..._

...A while back, Hyakkimaru had a run-in with a demon. It filled his vision with red, and Dororo called that _big_.

Hyakkimaru starts again. “Seed rice.”

He imagines gold filling his vision, and tilts his head up to where he thinks it might be. “Big.”

Dororo lets out a wobbling huff of air. “That’s right, Aniki. It’ll grow.”

Hyakkimaru lets himself relax, content with the answer, as he silently starts forward and stows the word away. _Grow._

Dororo bounces along besides him, unwilling to let too much silence pass. “I’ll grow too, you know! Maybe I’ll grow bigger than you!”

Hyakkimaru tries to imagine Dororo big enough to flood his vision with white. Unlike with the seed rice, he can’t see it.

* * *

 

The pair wander into a small village late in the day. It’s smaller than what Hyakkimaru is used to seeing; he can tell where the dwellings start and end, can keep track of the few wandering flames bustling about. There isn’t anything unusual about the sight or structure of the place, but Hyakkimaru is surprised by something else.

It’s loud. Like having a dozen Dororos instead of just one, all jabbering to one another, running through crisp grass, slamming wooden doors, stomping up steps, and banging pots and pans in nearby kitchens. Even the smaller beings in the village, ones that weren’t like him or Dororo, were barking and scratching. It doesn’t bother him like it would have before he got used to the ears on his head; instead he finds himself mesmerized.

Hyakkimaru is still drinking in the sounds of the place when Dororo’s high pitched yelp cuts through the air, juxtaposed by the lower frequency of the village’s ambient sounds.

“It’s you! The old man!”

Hyakkimaru can see what Dororo is referring to. He recognizes the pattern dancing in the white flame, and categorizes the one in front of him with the name _Old Man_. His list of names is growing into a collection.

When Old Man starts talking, Hyakkimaru can’t find the motivation to pay attention. He hadn't cared for the way they had pulled his arm back and yelled into his sensitive ear back when sound still wouldn't let him sleep. Their raspy, gravelly voice was almost as irritating now as it was then, and Dororo’s high-pitched tone contrasted Old Man’s in such a way that it grated.

And so, Hyakkimaru turns his ears from the chattering pair to listen to bustle of the little village. Two people are leaning against the side of a nearby house, sluggish words easy to pick apart. Hyakkimaru catches _tree_ , _food,_ and _money_. He repeats the words under his breath, correcting his mistakes and going over harder syllables.

One person walks past him, muttering lowly under their breath, too quiet to hear properly. The smaller thing yaps occasionally from its place on the grass, raising its head and growling each time a person passes by. One person yells back at it, and Hyakkimaru notes that it’s called _dog_.

Hyakkimaru’s ears perk when he hears _aniki_ , a word that refers to him, come from the mouth of a stranger. They’re small, like Dororo, with a voice equally as high. They run up to a taller figure, and Hyakkimaru is hit with the familiarity of the picture.

The illusion shatters when the taller figure begins to speak back, jabbering with enthusiasm to match.

Hyakkimaru always assumed the white flames were like him. Or, that many of them were. He knew he was different from the ones he ate, and the ones like the dog. But the rest, he felt, were similar. He watched them pass by, never having reason to believe their worlds were any different from his own. They would pass him by in the expansive, dark, silent void, and he would do the same. Surely they all felt just as numb, as hollow, and as completely empty as he did. Why would he assume otherwise?

But now, Hyakkimaru is a lone figure standing in a world several dimensions removed from his own. The others cluster, communicating and understanding each other with the practiced ease a lifetime granted them, moving around Hyakkimaru as if he were a rock in a stream.

Dororo and Old Man end their conversation, and Hyakkimaru decides to ripple the water.

“Goodbye, Old Man,” he says. The words come out hard and punctuated, throat tight at his general irritation towards the other.

Old Man almost immediately breaks out into a barking sound of their own, and Dororo is quick to follow. The sound is as grating as it is new, scratchy in a way that makes Hyakkimaru’s own throat itch. But it makes their souls grow brighter, and Hyakkimaru grits his teeth when he recognizes the noise as another thing he just doesn’t understand.

Dororo quiets as Old Man turns to leave the two. They turn to Hyakkimaru, and make a curious sound.

“Something wrong, Aniki?” The words turn upward at the end, open-ended in a way that Hyakkimaru has heard many times on the long stretches of their travel.

Hyakkimaru ignores the question.

* * *

 

Water swirls around Hyakkimaru’s feet. The babble of the stream is mellow and repetitive, and wood knocks on wood behind him as Dororo works on setting up a fire. Standing still in ankle-deep water was now a pastime, as the sensation of cool water on his foot while hot sun hit his hair was something Hyakkimaru had yet to tire of.

Eventually, wisps of white began to twist in the inky black at his feet. They were animals, and it only took him a few moments to remember their name.

“Dororo, fish.”

As soon as the words leave his mouth, the fish scatter. He knew they would leave if he moved, but Hyakkimaru is surprised they’re sensitive to noise as well.

There is a clatter behind him as Dororo drops the wood in their hands. “Well, catch one and we can have fish for dinner.”

It doesn't take long for the fish to return, swimming in lazy, ill-fated circles around him. It also doesn't take long for Hyakkimaru to skewer one on each arm before holding them up to Dororo like an offering. Dororo eventually manages to get the fire going, the crackle of burning tinder filling the air along with a sweet, tempting smell that curls around him like a fog cloud. By the time the fish are finished cooking, Hyakkimaru is sure the scent has made him more ravenous than he's ever been. Eating had only ever really been a necessity, never something to look forward to and savor, but ever since he had defeated the demon that held his nose, food was just--

“That good, huh?” Dororo asks, noticing Hyakkimaru’s enthusiasm. “Yeah, this fish is okay,” they take a hearty, over-large bite, then go on to speak around their chewing, “but you haven’t eaten until you’ve tried nashi pears.”

Hyakkimaru decides to continue eating instead of acknowledging Dororo’s claim. Lazily, he wondered if pears tasted like fish, or berries, or rice.

“There was this old farmer I used to steal pears from.” Dororo continues, “He had so many, I thought he wouldn’t care if a couple went missing every once in a while.”

Dororo pauses, and Hyakkimaru was glad for the opportunity to break the sentence down. Sometimes, Dororo forgot to speak slowly.

“I would get one for me, and one for my mama.”

Hyakkimaru hadn’t noticed Dororo’s flame dimming, but now their outline was almost impossible to see. Dororo talked of _Mama_ more and more frequently, and it didn’t take much imagination to understand why their flame dulled each time. White flames were inclined to pass each other by, and some died out completely. Either way, most didn’t stick around for long.

“Mama and I had to leave after I got caught,” Dororo says, before saying something incomprehensibly fast. After another bite of fish, they say, “I think I could find the farm again, if we backtracked some.”

Hyakkimaru shoots back, “No. Keep walking.”

“Why not?” Dororo asks, voice rising in pitch.

Hyakkimaru doesn’t understand Dororo’s question. It was always about hunting demons, and they knew there were no demons behind them. They could worry about peaches after Hyakkimaru had eyes to see them with.

It’s obvious, and too complicated to try to say, and so Hyakkimaru doesn’t speak back.

“You never listen to me,” Dororo says.

Hyakkimaru can hear them just fine, thanks to his demon-slaying, but doesn’t bother to correct Dororo.

* * *

 

White flames pass by. It’s what they’ve always done, and it’s what Hyakkimaru does. It shouldn’t surprise him when the jabber that’s turned to white noise in his head cuts out. It shouldn’t surprise him when he whirls around to an empty, black world.

Hyakkimaru shouldn’t be surprised that Dororo is gone.

The little flame’s absence grows a knot of… something at the base of Hyakkimaru’s throat. If Dororo were here, he could ask the name of the feeling bubbling in his chest and pounding behind his skull.

As it is, Hyakkimaru is faced with two choices. Flames came and went; it was what they did. It’s what they’ve always done. Hyakkimaru never questioned it, and had no reason to start now. He could go on as he had been, slaying demons himself, putting his stolen body back together piece by piece. Find the answer of what it was like to be whole and unbroken, find out what it was like to feel the weight of something in his hands and see the world around him.

Or, he could look for Dororo. Flames usually passed on, he shouldn’t have questions, but…

A question is unearthing itself despite that. Since Dororo started following him around, sticking to his side like a nettle, he’d found himself mildly curious. Now, that mild curiosity grew into something burning, something itchy, and he felt as if he couldn’t move passed it.

Dororo is the second flame to stick by his side, to teach him and keep him company and comfort him in their familiarity.

Hyakkimaru runs into the first on his journey to find Dororo.

The first flame has a deep, gravelly voice. Unlike the old man, their voice soothes the pounding of his heart in his ears. Calloused hands find Hyakkimaru’s cheek, and he leans into the touch, able to feel the warmth radiating from them for the first time.

Dororo often talked of their mama. Dororo’s mama kept them warm and fed, taught them, kept them safe. Hyakkimaru asks for the first flame’s name, but already knows the answer.

Before he leaves, Hyakkimaru’s mama speaks, “You can stay here, you know?”

 _Stay_. The word is new, and Hyakkimaru can’t parse its meaning from the rest of the sentence. “I don’t get it,” he says.

“Hm?”

“Stay. I don’t get it.”

“Oh,” his mama says, their voice rising in surprise. “I mean, you don’t have to leave. You can stay here, take a break. You’re always welcome with me, Hyakkimaru.”

The word _stay_ slots neatly into place in Hyakkimaru’s mind, nestled with the rest of his vocabulary. He knows he won’t stay, not yet, and the flicker of his mama’s light tells him they know it too.

Hyakkimaru has to find Dororo. He can’t describe why, but the idea of finishing his journey without that constant by his side makes his throat feel tight.

* * *

 

When Hyakkimaru finds Dororo, it’s like a rock dislodges from his chest. He feels lighter than he has in days, and he can’t stop the upturn of his lips when he says, “I came for you.”

Dororo seems just as relieved, and their voice is wobbly and unsteady when they tackle him with a hug. “It took you long enough! I had to go through a bunch of stuff by myself...”

Hyakkimaru understands what Dororo really means.

Much later, when things die down enough to feel normal again, Hyakkimaru decides to ask the question he’s been building in his throat for the past few days.

“Why did you stay?”

“Hm? What do you mean?” Dororo asks from their spot on the grass.

Hyakkimaru is lost on how to clarify that, how white flames passed on with little exception. He never had to question his mama; they had always been part of his landscape. But Dororo was new, showing up one day out of the black and staying for no reason Hyakkimaru could see. Perhaps he needed eyes before he would be able to understand.

He settles on repeating himself. “Why did you stay?” As an afterthought, he adds, “You don’t have to. So, why?”

“Oh!” Dororo perks in understanding. “I guess… I was lonely. And it seemed like you would be lonely too.”

 _Lonely_ , like _alone_? Hyakkimaru wouldn’t say that; before Dororo, he had his mama, and the period between leaving them and meeting the little flame was short.

There’s a crisp snapping sound as Dororo picks at the leaves of a nearby bush. “I would hang out in these bigger towns after my mama died, because they had more stuff. And, you know, I’d have all these people around me, but none of them knew me, so they wouldn’t talk to me or look at me.” There’s another snapping sound, sharp enough to rustle the whole bush. “That… kinda felt worse than just being alone in a forest somewhere. Does that make any sense?”

“Hm.” Hyakkimaru thinks he understands. After his ears were returned to him, he realized just how far removed he was from the world. Even Dororo, he couldn’t always understand. Perhaps white flames didn’t pass by as part of their nature, perhaps, they just passed _him_ by, sensing the missing pieces of his body and the holes in his soul.

“That makes sense,” he answers.

Dororo’s flame flickers a little lighter, and a soft laugh chimes out, “Thanks for listening, Aniki.”

Hyakkimaru feels himself grow lighter, too. He doesn’t understand every sound, or every sentiment. But he feels like he understands Dororo, and for now, that’s enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Anyone think of how smart Hyakkimaru has to be to learn not only a whole language, but the whole concept of language??? I feel like he could have figured out a better solution for his father's land if he were allowed to grow up normally, but he can't because he was set back sixteen years. smh.


End file.
